The Affairs of the Falcóns

by Melissa Rivero

  Ana gathered the handles of her bags. “I don’t like that you’re in business with Valeria,” she admitted. “It’s just another thing for her to throw in my face. Doing favors for my friends.”

  “She’s not doing me any favors. I’m paying her to bring them over. I need the money, Ana. I have to move out of Carla’s. With the way Ernesto treats those kids, I swear, I’m going to lose it one day.” She paused, placing her elbows above her knees, scratching her brow. “I need the money for other things too,” she said.

  Ana looked out the window and realized her stop was next. She pulled the string above her head, signaling for the driver to stop. “Do you want to walk?” she asked. It was during their walks as children that Ana learned what it was like to be Betty. On a Sunday morning walk to the market, she learned that Betty still asked Papa Dios to look after her father, even though she couldn’t remember what he looked like anymore. And it was during those morning walks to school, whenever Betty had a fresh moretón on her leg or cut across her cheek, that Ana learned how one could salve a wound by listening to the birds’ song or consuming the morning air. She taught Ana how to shut her eyes and breathe.

  Betty’s stop was still several streets away, but she stood as the bus jerked to a halt. The pair walked alongside each other, down a narrow, residential street, two avenues away from the train station. A dampness had settled on the pavement, the mild winter having laid a shiny sheen on the concrete. The lamppost lights shot through the tree branches, creating shadow webs beneath their feet.

  “Do you remember,” Betty began, crossing her arms across her chest, “do you remember that time . . .”

  After what seemed like too long of a pause, Ana prodded, “Which time?”

  Betty shut her eyes as she spoke. “That time I told you I was pregnant?”

  Ana slowed her pace. Betty had first mentioned the pregnancy one night after an impromptu party at Tía Ofelia’s house in Bellavista. Ana was only eighteen at the time; Betty, sixteen. The pair could get drunk off of a couple of chelas. Betty was too tipsy to go back to her sister’s, and the two squeezed into Ana’s twin-size bed. It was as Ana was about to fall asleep, her ears still clogged from the pounding music, fantasizing about having Lucho’s mouth on hers, that Betty mumbled about why it was she had to leave Santa Clara. She couldn’t have the baby there. She couldn’t have the baby at all. Ana only listened, certain that, despite the beer and the muffled hearing and the hushed voice, she heard exactly what she thought she heard. She didn’t dare ask any questions, however. Betty was tired; she’d been drinking. What if this was something Ana wasn’t meant to know? What if this was something she couldn’t un-know?

  Except for that one time, Betty had never mentioned the pregnancy, and Ana had always hesitated bringing up the topic. She assumed Betty had taken care of the problem. She was, after all, childless.

  And so Ana admitted, “Yes, I do,” even though she still wasn’t sure how much she wanted to know. “I honestly thought maybe I wasn’t hearing right. We could barely get through a bottle of beer without getting drunk.”

  “That was a fun party your tía had that night,” said Betty, a smile touching her lips. “I didn’t think she’d let us drink like that. But you heard right. I got pregnant back in Santa Clara. That’s why I ended up in Lima.”

  “So what happened?” she asked. “Did you lose the baby?” As soon as she said it, Ana knew the answer, but she hoped her friend would say that yes, she’d lost the baby. She could feel sympathy, even console her friend, for a loss like that. She didn’t know how she’d react if the answer was anything else.

  “I did,” she said, “because Carla helped me.” She pulled a cigarette and matchbook from her coat pocket. “You know how it is over there. Here, you can walk into a spot on Roosevelt Avenue or buy a few pills from a clinic or from Alfonso. Even one of these bodegas, ¡y ya! You can get back on track quicker than it took you to get pregnant in the first place.” She chewed her lips. “I had to go to the curandero first.”

  The curandero. The Don Alfonsos of Santa Clara. The chemists who made magic. They were the only ones who could be trusted. They didn’t rely on science or medicine. They had the earth, the sun, the saints, and the spirits to guide their work.

  “He gave me some herbs,” Betty continued. “I made a tea, but I didn’t bleed. I didn’t feel any pain at all. So then I went to Lima. Carla took me to some place to get it done. It turned out I didn’t need to worry about it after all. I have quistes.”

  “Where?” she asked.

  “All over,” she replied, circling her forefinger over her abdomen. “In one ovary and in my uterus. It’s hard for me to get pregnant in the first place. It’s even harder to stay pregnant.”

  A sudden wave of sadness hit Ana. Betty was good with Carla’s children; protective and doting, traits that Carla lacked. She spent years raising another woman’s children when, perhaps, she could have spent those years raising her own. She suddenly had a thought she couldn’t shake. What if the child was meant to be? If the curandero’s potions hadn’t worked, perhaps it was a sign that Betty needed to stay pregnant. “Was that your only chance?” she asked, then, quickly added, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “No, it’s okay,” she said. “I know what you’re thinking. I’ve thought the same thing.” She pinched the skin on her lower lip. “It might have been. But I don’t regret it. I was fourteen when I got pregnant, Ana. Fourteen! What was I going to do with a baby at fourteen?”

  What was Betty to do with a child at that age? Doña Sandoval only had two boys, and was cursed with four girls, all of whom left when they were old enough to make money in the capital or in another province. Betty’s future had been uncertain even while in the womb. She’d been an unexpected addition to the Sandoval clan. From an early age, everyone from her mother to the school nuns had declared her to be the stupid, careless child in the Sandoval house. There was, simply, never enough for her or her brothers, and the brothers were, after all, the only ones who could possibly find work to support the family. If she hadn’t ended the pregnancy, her own mother might have beaten it out of her.

  “Alfonso’s helping me with the pain and my cycle. It’s kind of all over the place. He gave me some new medication, but he wants me to see a doctor. It’s the last thing I want. The pain isn’t that bad yet. Hopefully the new medication will work. But they’re expensive, even with Alfonso’s discount. God forbid I need something more drastic, what am I supposed to do? Borrow money from Carla? Forget it. That’s why I’m trying to make some extra money with these cigarettes, Ana.”

  She nodded, and the two fell silent as their walk turned into a stroll. The gusts had picked up, and the stillness of the empty street would ordinarily have sent Ana racing toward a warmer, more brightly lit area. Neither could make her move faster, however. She was nearly planted into the concrete as she took in all that Betty had revealed.

  They reached the train station, and Betty dropped her cigarette butt into what was left of her shadow, pressing it into the ground before lighting another one. “I’m not one to cry about things, you know me. But it doesn’t seem fair sometimes, especially when I see Carla and Ernesto with the kids.”

  “It can’t be easy for them either,” said Ana, overwhelmed by an unexpected impulse to defend the pair. “They haven’t really parented before. They’re getting to know their children, and their children are older. It’s not like they’re babies. Imagine how difficult it must be for them.”

  “Imagine how much more difficult it is for the kids,” Betty countered. “Anyway, I have to go see that bodeguero about the cigarettes. I feel terrible leaving my chiquitines, but the sooner I move out of Carla’s, the better.”

  When they said goodbye, Ana held on to Betty a beat longer than usual. She felt heavier, as if something still weighed on her. It wasn’t shame. Betty was never one to lament the circumstance of her life, even if she had every reason to. She was always the bold, strong one. It occurred
to Ana that perhaps there was something else Betty was keeping from her.

  And so she whispered, “Who was it?” as she held Betty. “Don’t tell me it was Pepito?” she joked to lighten the severity of her question. By the time Betty was fourteen, Ana had already been in Lima for two years. Her father had disappeared; so had her uncle. There was the Colonel, who she hadn’t seen since her own mother died. She wanted to know who it was; if it was any one of the men who had come in and out of her own life.

  Betty held her tighter. “Remember how we used to watch your mother?” she said. An image of the two on their knees beside Doña Sara’s bedroom window, the dust clouding around them in the midafternoon sun, the boots and revolver scattered on the floor, made Ana’s skin rise. “Remember him? He used to come for your mother. All the time. It was always your mother, and I’m so grateful to her for that.” She looked skyward, shutting her eyes. “And then she was gone.”

  Ana’s body bristled.

  “It was gonna be our turn one day,” Betty continued. “You just got out before it was yours.”

  5

  WHEN SHE ARRIVED AT LEXAR TOWER, SHE WAS COVERED IN SWEAT and ten minutes late. Her schedule and Lucho’s overlapped for less than an hour during the week: as soon as she got home, there was a hand off of unfinished homework, tangled hair, and television monitoring. Tonight, with her visit to La Farmacia Pérez, there was even less time to make the swap. “I’m here,” she shouted as she opened the front door, still in a daze from her conversation with Betty.

  Victoria bolted toward her. “¡Mami!” she shouted, wrapping her arms around her mother’s waist then quickly snapping back. She pinched her nose and pointed to the bags in Ana’s hands. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a hen,” she said as she set her items down in the kitchen, “and pork for New Year’s. Don’t make that face. You love hen soup.” Victoria shuddered then ran back to the living room.

  “What took so long?” Lucho shouted from the hallway.

  “The bus was late,” she replied as he shut the bathroom door. She took off her coat and slung her purse back over her shoulder as she headed to Michael’s bedroom to greet her son. Then, she continued to her own room where she stashed her birth control pills in her dresser drawer before changing into an oversized T-shirt and sweatpants.

  Victoria was in the living room, sitting in front of the coffee table. A workbook lay open on top of it, surrounded by several colored pencils. Me lo contó un pajarito, a Spanish-language entertainment news show, blared from the television screen. Ana did a double take as Lucho walked in, dressed in finely edged black pants and a pair of loafers that, she could tell, had just been polished.

  “Do you know she has homework?” he asked as he pulled a burgundy turtleneck over his head.

  “I do,” said Ana, turning to her daughter. Victoria’s chin was in her palm and her eyes were downcast. “Victoria, you told me you already did your homework.”

  “Papi,” she said, sitting up straight, “that’s not true. I said I was doing my homework, and look.” She pointed to her name, scribbled in twig-like letters across the top of several pages. “I was doing it.”

  “I’m speaking to you,” said Ana. “Not your father. And you told me just the other night that you already did it.”

  “But I was doing it, Mami, that’s what I’m saying.” Her eyelashes fluttered, and her head gave a gentle shake. “It’s okay, Mami. You forgot. I forget sometimes too.”

  Ana shot Lucho a look, but he only smirked, seemingly pleased by their daughter’s response. “Let’s do a little every day, Victoria. I don’t want to see you rushing to finish it all the night before you go back to school. And practice your M’s.” He pointed to the next letter she had to trace. “Then I’ll teach you how to write mentirosa.”

  Victoria pressed her pencil into the paper. “I’m not a liar,” she whispered.

  “Don’t say that to her,” said Ana. She couldn’t, in fact, remember what words her daughter had used, and Victoria had a penchant for precision. She needed clarification when it came to bedtime (was she supposed to be in bed by 8:30 P.M. or asleep by 8:30 P.M.?). She negotiated how much food she had to consume if she wasn’t particularly fond of it (only four spoonfuls of tripe stew because it takes a long time for her to chew and it was almost bedtime). It didn’t surprise Ana that Victoria’s explanation for the incomplete homework was that her mother misunderstood her. Perhaps Ana hadn’t asked the question with the particularity her daughter demanded. Still, she’d rather get into the habit of clarifying her daughter’s words than have anyone, especially her father, call her a liar. “Maybe I did forget,” she conceded.

  Lucho took a comb out of his back pocket, then headed to the bathroom. She followed.

  “Ana, I can’t discipline her if you’re going to make excuses for her,” he said. He added water and gel to his hair.

  “You weren’t discipling her,” she said. “You were making fun of her.”

  “I wasn’t. She lied, didn’t she?”

  Ana leaned against the door. “I’ve got some good news,” she said, eager to change the subject. “I’m working overtime next week. Just four hours. Two on Wednesday, two on Thursday.”

  “That’s good,” he said, turning around to give her a quick peck on the lips. “‘Hello,’ by the way.”

  She looked at the floor, then said, “I’ll be a little late tomorrow too. I have to run an errand for Mama.” He combed his hair back, looking intently into his reflection in the mirror. “You dress really well for someone who sits in a car all night,” she remarked.

  “I like looking like my old self sometimes,” he said. “Besides, you have no reason to worry. It’s not like I have time for girlfriends.”

  She wasn’t amused even though, in all the years they’d been together, he’d never given her a reason to doubt his fidelity. When they first met, at a dinner his friend was hosting in San Borja, he seemed uninterested in anything but politics. She’d gone as his brother’s date. Lucho was there alone. He stood out not just for his height and pale skin, but the force in his voice, the fire in his hands, as if he could march to La Plaza de Armas at that very moment and incite a revolution. The newly elected president, the Sendero Luminoso, all those who were now desplazados—these were all the reasons why he had no faith in the new government, no confidence that it would restore peace to Peru’s provinces. It was only a matter of time, he said then, before Sendero displaces limeños themselves.

  We’re already being displaced, someone else had countered, and Ana felt their eyes land on her. It was, after all, the indigenous of Peru’s interior who were fleeing their towns and villages to seek refuge in Lima from both the Sendero Luminoso and the soldiers who had descended to protect the people. That she was looked on as an invader didn’t surprise her. She’d been working at the notaría’s reception desk long enough that she was no longer fazed by the surprised look on some of the clients’ faces, when they came to seek their high-paid lawyer’s counsel only to be greeted by someone who looked like the maid they kept at home.

  What did surprise her that night, however, was that Lucho, and not his brother, came to her aid. “We’re one people,” he said then. “It’s that kind of thinking that’s tearing us up. That you and I are any different from this lady. It’s bullshit.”

  On the drive home, she asked Carlos how it was that Lucho was single. “Are you interested?” he joked, though he took his eyes off the road to gauge her reaction.

  “He just seems like the kind of man who shouldn’t be,” she said.

  Carlos explained that his brother was more interested in his research work at the university and the upheaval within the government than finding a partner.

  When Carlos began working late and couldn’t give her a ride home, Lucho offered to pick her up instead. It was during those nights that he asked about her past. He asked only a few questions about her parents. Were they originally from Santa Clara? Did her father always work en las montañas? H
ow was it, growing up an only child?

  Fine, she had replied, though she admitted that she sometimes wished she’d had a brother or a sister.

  Then he’d ask about the military. Had they ever knocked on her door? What did they do to the people they arrested? Were they even terrorists? Is it true, the stories you hear about the murders and the rapes of the villagers?

  Yes, the military checked in, she told him, but she never mentioned the Colonel’s visits. She spoke quietly about the gunshots she’d hear while she lay in bed at night, the occasional high-pitched wail that often accompanied them, but otherwise claimed her nights were quiet. She confessed that one could never tell whether the violence was Sendero or not.

  It was enough to cause a temblor under his skin. Pero nadie hace nada, he’d grit. It’s only when the pitucos in Lima can’t have dinner in peace that anyone cares.

  She often found herself searching for those shifts, for that passion that moved him so much back in those days. But it had apparently evaded her in New York. They were far away from that reality, and the relative peace that came with their decision to leave Peru had calmed the upheaval that once seemed to brew just beneath the surface.

  “Are you going to ask Valeria to watch the kids?” he asked as he walked back into the living room. “You know she doesn’t like leaving the body shop too early.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” she said. “I don’t know why she’s always got to be there anyway. It’s not like there’s anyone there for Rubén to mess around with now.”

  Victoria perked up. “What are you saying about Tío, Mami?” she asked.

  “Your father and I are speaking, Victoria.”

  “Okay. Excuse me, Mami, but what are you saying about Tío Rubén?”

  “Turn around and do your homework.”

  Lucho looked at Ana sideways. There were some things that the family didn’t discuss. Her relationship with Carlos was one of them. Rubén’s affair was another. The children were part of the reason why; privacy and pride were another.